Baby Bliss

It's becoming more and more obvious that I've reached the child-bearing age. Not so much yet for myself, but for close friends and family. To try and incorporate my art with something useful I've been trying to make a few baby blankets. The first I made for Mike's niece Lily. Before we knew she would be a girl, I decided to make the blanket very gender neutral with yellow, turquoise and white, and created a soft checkered blanket.

I purchased the acrylic cotton "baby" yarn at Wal-mart with understandably low expectations, but once it was washed, I was extremely surprised at the softness! I was so happy with the result of this blanket, that I decided to make one for the newest member of my "family" Leiland!

This is my best friend Christie's second child, and her first is my Goddaughter, Faye. So I wanted to make him something extra special! Since I started the blanket already knowing what the sex was, I was able to choose yarn more "boy" oriented (sorry to all those gender-sensitive!). I purchased two variegated yarn colors from Michaels, and created a series of thick and thin stripes.

One of my biggest frustrations with weaving larger projects such as a blanket is that my shuttle, while it is immensely beautiful, the bobbin on it is so small that I can only weave about an inch at a time with a thicker yarn. Thankfully, I'm awaiting a Leclerc standard shuttle from a place in Ontario which should arrive any day!!!

I tried to create some horizontal stripes with the darker colored yarn that I had purchased, but because the yarns were so similar in color, it didn't go as well as planned. I ended up weaving the rest of the blanket with the lighter of the two, and placing another darker strip at the end.

I had procrastinated in weaving this blanket for a while, for whatever reason. Probably because with such a small bobbin, it was getting frustrating weaving such a small amount, and having to rewind. It felt as though the weaving was creeping along. But I finally finished and I'm pretty impressed with the results.

I feel that this blanket doesn't scream "baby" and will be good for Leiland to carry on to older years. Or at least until the point where he doesn't fit it anymore (although it covers me!) and I'll have to weave him a larger one! I'm currently working on one as well for Faye (have to be fair now...). If anyone is interested in having a blanket woven, please contact me!